作者Elizabeth Currid論證「在紐約,文化產業要比金融服務業來得重要」的方法,頗有其師Richard Florida的味道,但是在田野資料上的豐富,卻遠遠超過Florida。而不同於過去對於時尚產業的研究往往是從文化研究的路徑入手,Currid利用許多我們在經濟社會學中常見的概念(聚落、網絡、外包、弱連帶)來分析時尚,的的確確地把它們當做一種「產業」而非「現象」處理。印象中,Allen Scott的《On Hollywood: The Place, The Industry 》也是從「聚落」(cluster)角度切入談好萊塢的電影工業如何形成,不過兩者之間有何異同對話,就得花點時間去細讀比較了。
Physical proximity is not necessarily a good measure of social and cultural distance.
So, no, actually: the materialities of place, and the differences between places, matter hugely to the promoters of the virtual world
Geography is being turned into history, space is being turned into time.
Maybe we need to re-think the “identity of place", not only away from its being a claim to exclusive ownership,but also towards its also being a recognition of responsibility - the responsibility of place – within and towards those wider geographies.
在談完東京的基本結構後,町村教授把問題轉回「何謂新自由主義?」他認為,所謂的新自由主義,不是一個結構,而是一個政治經濟連續過程,因此關鍵問題是:那些路徑(path)需要被考慮?從「發展歷史」來看,包括了工業化階段、國家角色;從「制度遺產」來看,要討論經濟、政治、社會、意識型態。他接著援引 Bob Jessop(2002)的著作,認為自由主義改革的深化程度要區分為:政策調整、體制轉移、激進的系統轉型。